Ushuaia

We arrive in Ushuaia and it is 10 degrees cooler than El Calefate but the wind does not seem to be as intense. We check into our hotel and immediately head to town for our Beagle Channel boat ride.

Our hostel manager made reservations for us on a boat that takes you to see penguins but the port of Ushuaia was a mad house and locating our tickets was difficult. Honestly, I believe that every tourist in Ushuaia was in that harbor. We board our catamaran and are off to see the penguins which is really exciting because I have never seen them outside of a zoo. We will also see warm weather penguins when we hit the Galapagos so it will be interesting to see the difference.

We pass by an island filled with white birds that look a lot like penguins but they fly. Next, we pass by Port Williams a  Navy base in Chile and is the world's Southern most city. The Beagle Channel and subsequent bay is sandwiched between Argentina and Chile with Argentina on the left (boat facing out to sea) and higher mountains. There is also a small fishing village across from Port Williams on the Argentina side that supplies all the king crab to Ushuaia.

We approach seal island next and every inch of this 25 foot rock is covered with seals. They are laying on top of each other and I even saw one pee all over the seals underneath him. I couldn't help but wish a Great White was in these waters. That would be an exciting show.

We move on to the main event- penguins. The boat sails for another hour and a half to penguin island and they named it quite appropriately. With two kinds of penguins currently inhabiting the island, Gentoo and Magellanic. The Gentoo are your typical penguins in suits and are only there until mating season ends. The Magellanic have distinctive orange feet which are neat to see. We stop for 15 minutes so the other passengers can get a photo from every angel. I see some people emptying entire memory cards on these suckers. They are cute and have babies with them but come on people. I think we took 15 pictures total.

Anyway after the photo shoot is over we head back to port. Everyone takes their seats and prepares for the 2 hour journey back. I am napping, mouth open and all when I hear a scream of joy. A FREAKING WHALE has joined the party.  It seems two humpback whales were having a grand old time, flipping their fins and doing cool whale stuff. So exciting and apparently rare. Really was icing on a very lovely boat ride.

Now off to see what this King crab is all about.